Disney’s Beauty and the Beast indefinite delay in Malaysia, due to its “exclusively gay moment”, has been lifted. Disney refused to release the movie in the country without it and Malaysia caved. Meanwhile, the movie has opened huge in China, with 100,000 reported screenings on its opening night. This constituted 43% of China’s screenings that […]
Greetings from Peking University in Beijing. It has been an amazing month. Lots of big developments in US-China business. And, in a crazy bit of luck, I ended up talking with Warren Buffett for a couple of hours over lunch – which I have written up in the articles below. Cheers, Jeff – Articles – Grocery […]
During the 2007 financial crisis, former Citigroup CEO Charles Prince famously said: “When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.” Looking at the bike-sharing business in China today, you see a lot of such dancing. You […]
In February 2017, I chaperoned 20 business students from Peking University to meet Warren Buffett in Omaha. It turned out to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip, an investment pilgrimage of sorts. In 4 articles, I document what happened and what we learned. I have included a lot of detail, especially on the Berkshire companies we […]
Greetings from Peking University in Beijing. I send out a monthly reading list with the best China articles (and books) I have come across. If you would like to be on this list, you can sign up at www.jeffreytowson.com. Also, if you come across any really great articles, please send them to me. Here’s my […]
One of the big stories of 2016 was the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, which went off without a hitch (well, except for the rain). Looking back, I mark the opening as the firing of the starter’s pistol in the race to become the “Disney of China”. In many other industries, this type of winner in […]
Chinese consumers continue to grow relentlessly in number and wealth. This is a well-studied economic trend. But what people are missing is how the changing behavior of these consumers is now regularly shaking the world. Suddenly when Chinese consumers start eating more meat, it impacts agriculture in the American midwest. When they discover northern Thailand […]
Is China’s growth really slowing? Does it matter? I think it all depends on where you’re looking. Every year, China’s GDP growth numbers are released and they get lots of attention. Is it accurate? Is China’s growth slowing? How much? Does it matter? My answer is that certainly some China industries are slowing, such as […]
In August 2016, DidiChuxing bought Uber China. This was the end of a long and expensive fight for the Chinese ride-sharing market. With their merger, they officially became friends. But only in China. And definitely not in Southeast Asia. Following the sale of its China business to Didi last week, Uber began immediately refocusing on […]
Greetings from Peking University in Beijing. I send out a monthly reading list with the best China articles and books I have come across. If you would like to be on this list, you can sign up at www.jeffreytowson.com. Also, if you come across any really great articles, please send them to me. Here’s my […]